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Monday, April 4, 2011

An important warning from "An Anonymous Federal Employee": "Their desire to escape responsibility for acting at all at this time . . . is powerful."

"Get off yer ass. Drink water. Drive on." -- Saying in the 101st Airborne Division when the going gets tough but you've made it through to the first objective and you think it is time to rest.

I suggest that before you read this post, you read the previous one on the Waco coverup and David Hardy's book "This Is Not An Assault." In fact, the post on Waco was suggested to both me and David Codrea by someone who wishes to be referred to as "an anonymous federal employee."

His caution below underscores the Waco coverup lesson, as he commented in the preface email to us:

"The reason is that the Congress makes decisions based on politics, not facts."

Here is his analysis --

I have developed a sense that both sides (Congress and the Executive Branch) have quietly come to an agreement to let Project Gunrunner blow over, because the consequences otherwise are too great. There are no signals that anybody is going to get "offered up" for sacrifice. This is a decision that would be out of Mr. Melson's hands, and determined by the Attorney General (but, more likely, the White House). There are no such noises.

I respectfully suggest that you and your readers study pages 151-155 of David Hardy’s book, This Is Not An Assault, focusing not on the Waco abbatoir, and instead his take on the July 21, 2000, report by then Sen. John Danforth, who was asked years AFTER Congress was done to answer lingering questions about whether federal law enforcement had acted inappropriately.

Attorney Hardy’s analysis is the closest thing we have to a script on how Project Gunrunner/Project Gunwalker is going to play out, and all y’all ought to listen to what he says.

The 149-page report, attorney Hardy notes, “was for the most part a chronology according to the government sources. It did not consider any allegations against the ATF. It likewise ignored many major questions regarding the FBI” and concluded “that the Davidians had started the fire.” In the face of a tragedy like Waco, Danforth stated, “we have a need to affix blame. Things like this just can’t happen; they must be the government’s fault,” and Danforth went on at length:

Ample forums exist to nurture our need to place blame on government. Sensational films construct dark theories out of little evidence and gain ready audiences for their message. Civil trial lawyers, both in the public and private sectors, carry the duty of zealous representation to an extreme. The media, in the name of “balance,” gives equal treatment to both outrageous and serious claims.

Hardy observes: “You could almost see the writer’s look of indignation: documentary makers, attorneys, the press, all dare to criticize the government! In the fact of this, Danforth continued, it was only natural for government officials to, well, maybe lie a little. ‘In today’s world, however, it is perhaps understandable that government officials are reluctant to make full disclosures of information, for fear that the result of candor will be personal or professional ruin.’ That was it. By demanding truth and accountability, the fickle mob was forcing government officials to lie and withhold evidence.”

What happened? Danforth filed felony charges against Bill Johnston, “the former U.S. attorney who had allowed Mike McNulty into the [Texas] Rangers’ evidence locker, and who had informed Attorney General Janet Reno that her subordinates were withholding the truth. . . . twelve million in taxpayer dollars had gone to . . . produce a report blaming the taxpayers, and a prosecution of the one whistleblower who had broken ranks from the coverup.”

My take on Project Gunrunner is dark: that the Congress doesn't want to do anything to compromise the ability of the feds to (1) carry out and get away with bone headed schemes to further agency interests, (2) worry about accepting any responsibility for (2), regardless of, e.g., whether such activities result in the murder of a federal law enforcement officer, and likely the murders of hundreds of Mexican citizens and government officials in Mexico, and (3) prosecute citizens and feds alike who decide to not go along with things like (1) and/or (2). To discipline ATF personnel who did wrong things would be going too far. If you doubt my dark perspective, take the time to read attorney Hardy’s book on Waco, and consider the lessons of that history. They are bleak indeed.

As we have seen, Chairman Issa has issued what is known as a subpoena duces tecum to ATF to fork over specific documents; and his Ranking Minority Member has just as quickly condemned that action. As David Hardy pointed out last Friday: “This makes it more of a showdown: if a subpoena isn’t complied with, he can move (I think it takes a majority of the entire House) to hold the recipients in contempt of Congress, so that enforcement can then become holding them behind bars until they deliver the documents.”

Where does Chairman Lamar Smith stand? He tossed down a March 18 deadline for documents and got stonewalled, and one wonders about his odd silence. In September 1996, Rep. Smith learned that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had made estimates of numbers of illegal aliens in the United States, but the White House refused to release them because it was too close to the election. Rep. Smith issued a subpoena duces tecum and obtained the estimates; however, he didn’t release them! He only wanted to see them; what does he want now? It is a fair question that ought to be fairly asked.

There will be some sort of investigation and resolution to all of this—and I'm not suggesting it's gonna be an easy slide for either the Congress or ATF or DOJ, because there are indignant Mexicans to deal with, and that's not gonna be so easy. But Mexico will eventually go along with a resolution, because Mexico has to---Mexico needs the United States, and the United States needs Mexico not to become a failed state.

Finally---think about this from the ATF side for a minute, and how, if asked, you would defend ATF. One defense would be that ATF was doing its job, following and dogging the right people---ATF just messed up by not arresting the people quicker than they did. Since there are APPARENTLY no hard and fast protocols for when to arrest, it becomes a matter of judgment; and from there, what sort of vetting, etc. went into the judgment? Who signed off on what, and when?

ATF has not handled Project Gunrunner issues well, and its apparently inherent belligerence is seriously harming ATF. There is, no doubt as Mr. Melson said in Baltimore, a very real element of "shut the f*** up" coming out of DOJ, and he's bound by the rules to do that; he's Acting, not his own man, and is probably more than distressed.

Government attorneys have weighed in on all this from the very beginning. Melson has been instructed, on at least some topics, to follow a word-for-word script that is LEGALLY correct, but MAY be incomplete and/or seriously misleading. That is what attorneys do; the law is not about the truth, but instead about "legal truth" which is amoral, and is "the right thing" only when "the right thing" coincides with "legal truth." Their desire to escape responsibility for acting at all at this time, or in future, is powerful because the consequences otherwise are too great.

-- "An anonymous federal employee."

All of which is a cautionary note to all of us who wish to the truth -- and soon -- about the Gunwalker scandal. Do not let up for a minute on pressuring your Congresscritters for thorough and IMMEDIATE hearings. Keep pushing. Keep being rude. Keep insisting. It is the only way we've gotten as far as we have.

Issa has issued subpoenas. So pat yourself on the back if you must, then get off your ass, drink water and drive on.

8 comments:

Read my comment on the Waco blog post. It's deja vu' all over again. I suspected this would happen because the players go all the way to the top (Obama), and they will drag this thing out ad nauseum, until it's too old and dusty to care about anymore. If Grassley and Issa drop the ball, we might as well lock and load, 'cause (like that clip in "Blazing Saddles when Bart arrives in town as the new sheriff) we're on our own.

I suppose the question has to be asked sometime and I would guess TPaine has already touched on it. What happens if the outcome of Gunwalker is no different from the outcome of Waco? If politicians are really going to let this blow over or nothing becomes of the hearings and subpoenas, what next?

And of course this means that even what's left of the "good" employees can do nothing to stop this. Nothing about Waco as well.

If government cannot stop itself, regulate itself, do the right and Constitutional thing, when will it ever stop, and who will do the stopping?

I have no doubt that the analysis is correct and precise and so where does that leave us? Where does that leave our children? These things never get better, always worse, by themselves.

Once again, the only fear they have is exposure by the media and the media aren't going to do much because they are in full agreement with those parties responsible and their policies, regardless of how many die and who they are.

Give Issa a little credit. He's biting into this thing's smelly ass, but hard. He could get a majority of the House to hold these guys in contempt, and he's just might be mean enough to do it with some unprofessional twists. Remember that this thing is also growing in the Main stream media, and I'm hearing more and more of it on local radio stations within 3 hours of my AO. This media interest, growing each week, must be seen by Issa's office and has to be lending strength to his efforts.

Do NOT lose heart. Give the bastards a win before the first volley? Count yourself a 97%er if you do that. We don't need but 218 votes for a contempt ruling and it might get to that.

Keep on the pressure.Hold your heads.Make them grab ankles and watch their assholes quiver.

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What Does It Mean To Be A "Three Percenter"?

These four principles -- moral strength, physical readiness, no first use of force and no targeting of innocents -- are the hallmarks of the Three Percent ideal. Anyone who cannot accept them as a self-imposed discipline in the fight to restore the Founders' Republic should find something else to do and cease calling themselves a "Three Percenter."

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The Nyberg Battle Flag of the Three Percent

This time we are ALL Davidians. This time, we are all Jews, Kulaks, "counter-revolutionists" and "enemies of the state." We are now a despised minority within a country no longer our own.BUT WE WILL NOT BE DESPISED.

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"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

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"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.